PCI to regulate sale of un-prescribed drugs by pharmacists

A Raju, Hyderabad Thursday, September 08, 2011

In this modern era of rapidly changing healthcare delivery systems, the roles of pharmacists are being constantly redefined. With an aim to regulate the private pharmacy practitioners, the Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) has come out with the draft pharmacy practice regulations. With this move, the number of drugs sold over the counter (OTC) in pharmacies may come down in the near future. With this, the PCI envisages a strict control on the sale of OTC medicines to curb development of resistance to drugs. In many countries including India, pharmacists are the most accessible of all healthcare workers and as such play a key role in the delivery of healthcare services at all levels. Globally, as there are drastic changes going on in the healthcare systems, the PCI feels that Indian pharmacists too should be regulated in order control the sale of un-prescribed drugs and thereby can control the disease resistant pathogens and avoid any future superbugs as such the recently discovered NDM1, called as New Delhi Metallo-1. Such superbugs can spread rapidly as they are extremely immune to antibiotics and resistant from all antibiotics known at present. Already several diseases and pathogens have become resistant to a number of medicines and the unrestricted sale of drugs over the counter without any valid prescriptions is being blamed for the emergence of new health issues. The draft regulation, once legislated by the Central government, will help define the role of pharmacists as clinicians and reduction of OTC medicines.